Isaac "Push" Wilson
A former Force Recon Marine and scout-sniper, Push has taken up work with Club Republica, rising to become Bronx's personal special protection and "cleaner" for high-priority situations. Untiring, focused, and extraordinarily lethal, he defends the Blake family with his every breath, loyal to the very end. Abilities Amplified Metabolism Push’s mutation is virtually invisible to the eye, unlike many metahumans, but it is a permanent change and one over which he has no power. His body operates on an almost entirely different set of metabolic processes from normal humans (and even most meta humans). First of all, it is capable of operating at a rate of at least fifty percent over the norm, which provides him with a much greater supply of energy available at any given moment – at the cost of requiring an equivalent increase in his caloric intake to compensate. Because of this, he is capable of performing at a higher level than normal humans at a great many physical tasks and even some mental ones, in addition to a slightly increased rate of healing. Second, Isaac’s body is capable of filtering and neutralizing toxins at an incredible and almost impossible rate. He is so effective at this that his body neutralizes the common fatigue poisons produced during waking hours and physical exertion faster than they can be produced. This frees up much of the body’s natural filtering mechanisms to deal with a wide variety of other toxins at an even greater rate – drugs and other chemicals of nearly every kind have very little effect on him. He is not immune, but does require massive doses to be affected in any way, and even then he typically recovers in a very short time. Almost more importantly, however, Push never tires, and never needs to sleep – in fact, because his brain never registers the signals that trigger the instinct to sleep, he is functionally incapable of doing so. He can maintain complete focus on a single task without ever needing to rest, making him an ideal protector, and enhancing the skills he already possessed as a sniper. He also gains hours in every day to spend on other tasks while the rest of the world sleeps – time he often devotes to training and honing his already considerable skills and physical condition. Because of these changes, Push can oftentimes seem to have additional powers, such as enhanced speed or strength, but this is not the case. His apparent enhanced physical attributes are a side effect of the fact that he does not tire even in the middle of lifting a heavy weight, able to devote one hundred percent of his effort to a task for the entire duration of said task. His increased focus gives the illusion of sharpening his senses as well, but none are particularly supernatural. The only additional true modification he possesses is an apparently finer adjustment ability of the lenses in his eyes – Push’s eyesight is at least twice as sharp as most human’s, though even before the Shift his sight was considered exceptional. Scout Sniper As a former Force Recon Marine, Push has a vast array of combat and survival skills, honed both in training, the Middle East, and even during his childhood in Louisiana. He can vanish in nearly any environment, is an absolutely lethal combatant in close-quarters, and (above nearly all else) an unsurpassed marksman with nearly any form of ranged weapon. Push’s grasp of projectile trajectories borders on instinctual, and he chooses his shots with precision born both of that skill and decades of experience using it – from gators, to insurgents, to Infected, and now whoever really needs killing. Multilingual Push speaks a number of languages from his time in the Middle East, and a bit of Spanish and French from his childhood. He tends to learn only what he really has to of other languages, though, so he is not quite fluent in any of these, though he speaks enough to get by and make himself understood. Personal Profile Appearance Standing at almost six-four, and weighing in at two-hundred and forty pounds of solid muscle, Push is far from a small man, and his physique reflects the daily hours of training he puts into maintaining it. Working mostly in the city for the past two years has faded the tan he once had. Push also has a fair collection of scars – two in his left chest, near the shoulder from where he caught part of a spray from a machine-gun nest in Iraq, and two long knife wounds across his chest and back, from Afghanistan. There are faded, almost invisible scars on his hands and arms from his childhood in the swamps – alligators are not easily subdued, nor are many other creatures in the region. He keeps his brown hair cut short, rarely quite to Marine specs anymore, but long hair simply bothers him after so long. His eyes are a bright shade of blue, and often hard-set, suiting his strong face and normally serious expression. His last distinguishing physical feature is the tattoo running down his spine – a Marine logo, with a massive crocodile coiled around it. His attire varies rather widely depending on the scenario – when at his current work, in a public setting he generally dresses to suit his employer, dressing formally and sharply where required to military precision even in civilian attire. If given the choice, however, Push tends to dress very simply – boots, jeans, and a shirt. The T-shirts he wears are Marine-issue often enough when he is not working. When he is, his attire is simply practical, allowing him the maximum mobility and ability to conceal weapons, or the maximum concealment in the given environment. He has a great deal of military gear at his disposal, and if the situation calls for THAT, he is more than willing to gear up and return to warfare. Personal Belongings Push never leaves his room unarmed – and in point of fact, he is rarely unarmed there, either. Apart from weapons, he generally wears a heavy analog tactical watch, of the type he used to synchronize with other members of his Recon team, and a cross on a golden chain that belonged to his grandmother – it was a gift given him on her deathbed, and he treasures it for that, not for any spiritual reasons. Even when ‘casual’, Push typically carries his Marine-issue M9 pistol and a .38 revolver concealed on his person. He also carries no fewer than three knives, including a 12” K-BAR combat knife, another of his Marine souvenirs. When gearing up for heavier combat, he will usually add a pair of lightweight Springfield XD40 pistols, and depending on the duty either a M14 DMR (Designated Marksman Rifle) or his treasured M40A5 sniper rifle. For ‘extreme prejudice’, or for hardened (or supernatural) targets he brings a .50 caliber Barrett XM700 rifle, a compact version of the M82A3 he used in Afghanistan. Push will also use his boss’s resources to acquire other weapons as necessary, particularly pistols and automatic weapons, though his rifles are specially cared for and he is extremely specific about them – and protective. Personality Having been raised in the utter backwoods of Louisiana, Push’s attitudes toward many things tend to a little ‘off’ by the standards of most people. Thankfully, nearly a decade in the Marines at least allow him to use his military discipline to cover these things up most of the time. Because of this, when he is unsure of what to do, he tends to fall back on this military training, often standing at parade rest or answering sharply, in clipped tones, or simply not speaking at all. His general attitude the rest of the time tends to be polite, generally the gentle Cajun, especially where women are concerned. He can be excessively polite at times where the fairer sex is concerned, and he sometimes has a touch of a problem with women who react poorly to this – it’s simply his trying to be polite the only way he knows how. On the job, Push’s personality is completely different. He is nearly emotionless, entirely without remorse, and lethally efficient. His every move is made for a reason, and he moves without a moment’s pause. If a single member of a group draws a pistol on Bronx or Eddie or someone else he has been tasked with guarding, Push will use any and all means at his disposal to murder every single one of them in the shortest time possible, no questions asked, no mercy given. This has become more prominent since the Shift – the complete inability to rest his mind and body with sleep has led to a slow detachment from the world, and he has to fight almost desperately with that every day to prevent losing any humanity to his killer side. He clings tightly to the few people he does have to care about with ferocity that borders on desperation. In general and in much of his personal life, however, Push epitomizes the Special-Forces Type A personality. His general courtesy conceals an intense drive to be the best at whatever it is he does and an intensely competitive nature that has driven him to the heights of skill he has reached. No one without the same drive has a chance of earning his respect, and it is very difficult to regain once it has been lost. Push is a Marine to the core, and adheres strongly to the tenets of that organization – despite the increasing difficulty of that in the post-shift world. Strengths/Weaknesses Strengths - Focus and Perception When in groups, Push tends to be an observer. He sits back and examines the situation, often planning potential moves long in advance and working the best way to come out ahead of a situation if things should go south – as, in his experience, they so often do. He can be intensely focused on a situation, but never to the point where he allows himself to neglect other tactical details. In addition, his sharp senses lend still greater advantage to this ability. - Marksmanship and Combat While his shooting skill is not supernatural, one might be hard-pressed to be able to tell that such is the case. Even in the Marines, which prides itself on the quality of its riflemen, Push was a standout shooter. In addition, his finely honed close combat abilities make him utterly lethal with a blade or even his bare hands. His experience also has rendered him totally unfazed by any amount of carnage, and he is nearly impossible to surprise. - Loyalty Push is loyal to a fault – if he is sworn to an oath, he will destroy himself to accomplish it, and he would die in an instant to protect Bronx or Eddie. He is an outstanding team player, and always puts the good of that team ahead of his own. Weaknesses - Impulsiveness Not in the sense that makes someone make impulse purchases or go out and date some random girl – Push is the sort of impulsive that causes him to think for barely a second before leaping into the breach, which has gotten him hurt more than once. He is smart, thorough, and meticulous, but when all that goes out the window, he will simply charge in guns blazing, and damn the torpedoes. - Uncultured For the first seventeen years of his life, Push lived in a swamp, far outside the boundaries of any city or town, living off the land and surviving with his family. For the rest, he was in the Marines, serving as a scout sniper often in dangerous territory, in the dunes or the scrub, spending days waiting for a target to show. He has little concept of culture in general, but for the music he sometimes obtained, and social situations often escape him. He is able to cover by cueing off someone else he trusts, but he has serious problems with some things in a huge city like New York. - Over-Focus The same intense focus that makes him so good at his job often causes serious problems in other aspects of his life, as he is prone to neglect them. This can often include people – especially the sort who lack the assertive nature necessary to remind him he has done so. - Perpetual Insomnia Because of his ability, Push is literally incapable of sleeping. He never gets tired, but the adjustment has bothered him deeply, and the inability to ever rest his eyes or his mind has been slowly wearing away at his psyche. History Push was born Isaac Alexander Wilson in Thibodaux, Louisiana, son of Deanna and Daniel Wilson, though his parent’s marriage fell apart at a very early age, mostly thanks to his father’s drinking. A Lieutenant in the Army, Daniel Wilson was a skilled soldier who spent the vast majority of his time on duty, and the rest of it drinking. Constantly passed over for promotion due to his demeanor and general insubordination, “Lieutenant Dan” was a bitter and generally unkind man with little time for his two sons. Instead, the two boys were raised mostly by their ailing grandmother, a poor woman who lived in a dilapidated shack deep in the Louisiana swamps, where her family had lived for decades. Despite their situation, Isaac and his brother made the best of things, and quickly became skilled hunters and trappers, as well as outstanding fishermen and survival experts. Their school attendance was never stellar, but their grandmother made sure they were able to read and write, as well as doing basic math and other things they would need later in life. The two were prone to trouble, and often found themselves escaping into the swamps for one reason or another, but they did their best to behave for their grandmother – especially on the rare instances where their father came home. “Dad” came with money and often gifts… but he also came with an abundance of alcohol and nearly always a violent episode – it was rare that his arrivals did not coincide with one of their often weeks-long disappearances into the wilderness. When they were ten, he stopped returning home, and neither boy was sad to see him leave. His location to this day is unknown, following his dishonorable discharge from the Army. When they were twelve, they returned from the swamps to find their grandmother missing. Eventually, they tracked her to the local hospital, where she passed away shortly thereafter, leaving the boys on their own. Having actually taken care of her to some degree for much of their lives, things changed little – and their attendance to school dropped off almost entirely. They continued going on this way until they were seventeen and eighteen, respectively, before enlisting in the Marines. Neither wanted to follow directly in their father’s footsteps, but the military was the only way out for either of them, and with the country descending further into warfare, it seemed the thing for red-blooded Americans skilled with rifles to do. Once in the Marines, both Wilson boys distinguished themselves almost immediately with their physical condition, drive, and killer instincts – Isaac especially earned a reputation for almost unstoppable stamina, gaining the moniker “Push-up” after actually outperforming a drill instructor in a contest, something which earned him nearly as much ‘shit’ as it did praise. Once out of Basic, the two enrolled in scout-sniper training, and were deemed too great a team to separate – eventually, they proved themselves in their first two tours, collecting a considerable array of mission ribbons and commendations for their work, and becoming one of the choice shooter teams for high-value-targets. It was the fourth tour, however, that truly changed the young Cajun. Lured into a trap by Taliban forces in an operation that would later be hidden completely from the public, Push and his brother, along with a team of Recon Marines were ambushed and badly outnumbered, far out of support range. Push has never spoken of the details – only to say that he lost six of his closest friends… and his brother. Despite receiving a Gold Star for his heroism in the effort, the event rocked Push to the core, and he spent a year back in Louisiana, fixing up his grandmother’s old home and cutting off nearly all contact with the outside world. When he finally finished the home, however, and was sitting on the porch, drinking a beer and frying the tail of a ‘gator he had caught, something else clicked. It was no longer home… he lost his brother, his grandmother was dead, and living there any longer would be a lie. Push used the cooking flame to burn the house down, and returned to the Marines – a colder, hardened soldier, but all the more focused on doing his duty… and exacting revenge. Before 2013, Push had logged another eight tours of duty in the middle-east and other regions, often on black missions, attached to various special-forces teams as a specialized sniper. He spent a year teaching marksmanship at Scout Sniper training, and reached the rank of Master Sergeant (E-8). When the Shift hit, he was in Arizona, testing a series of new sniper rifle variants with a team of trainees. Isaac was not the only Marine there to experience a change during the Shift… but he was one of the few whose changes were not extreme, and a number of the trainees went insane with their new powers. Between himself and a number of the other soldiers, Push was forced to put down four of them himself, and the team holed up with another group of military survivors at Groom Lake Air Force Base. Forced to fend off wave after wave of Infected and other monstrous creatures, the group cut a massive swath through the creatures, with most never making it past the horizon thanks to Isaac and his sniper team. Unfortunately, however, the impenetrable defenses of the base could never hold out against a threat from within… and it was the insidious virus from Chicago that finally wiped out the close-knit team. In the second event of his life Push refuses to speak on, the soldiers were picked apart one by one, defenses failing as links fell to disease and supernatural forces. Never tiring, Push fought until the last soldier fell – A Marine named Victor Callahan was the last one by his side. A green recruit, he fought like no one Push had ever met… except his own brother. If not for his constant boasting, claiming to be descended from General Patton himself, he remained an outstanding shot, and a brave kid Isaac tried desperately to look out for. Victor was overwhelmed by a zombie attack while trying to retrieve a Humvee for their escape, and Isaac was forced to shoot him before he turned. Somehow, Isaac managed to escape with the vehicle, which he named Patton in honor of Victor’s hero ancestor, and has kept to this day. Somehow, alone, Push was able to make it through the desert and the monsters, drifting, without purpose for the first time in his life, stripped of his family and the Corps. He wound up at Club Republica, where he took a job with security – and quickly distinguished himself as a lethal fighter and the most outstanding sharpshooter in the region. His skill and dedication was such that he was eventually promoted to the personal protector of Bronx Rock and his daughter, as well as making close friends with some of the other members… finding a purpose finally, something else to focus on, devote himself to, and train for, which he has been doing ever since. Time Line June 20th, 2014 - Unstoppable Force, Immovable Object - Brokering a deal with some Columbians in the swamps of Louisiana, near where Push grew up, the ex-Marine comes under attack by an unstoppable mercenary lady with impenetrable skin. One he actually knows well, though it takes the two some time to recognize one another... at which point animosity changes into something rather different. July 20th, 2014 - What have I done? - Finally returning from his long sojourn to the swamps, spying on the HLNA, Push pays a visit to the younger Blake, Edwina. He arrives at a strangely fortuitous time... and has to help her clean up a considerable mess she managed to find herself in. Hell of a reunion... Trivia Allies Enemies Category:Characters Category:Criminal Syndicates Category:Metahumans Category:Club Republica